In the past decade, an increasing number of people have become interested in their racial and/or ethnic heritages. In the U.S., the availability of African-American, Native-American, Hispanic-American, etc. related products have increased dramatically.
One problem with these racial and/or ethic related products that there are few recreational products, such as board games. For example, there are only a few board games specifically directed to racial and/or ethnic groups including African American, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, etc., in any format.
Another problem is that existing educational or recreational board games related to African American culture focus only on selected historical or educational topics. African American culture is rich in other areas including music, movies, language and sports. These topics have typically not been included in such African American culture board games.
There have been attempts to overcome some of the problems associated with racial and/or ethnic based board games. The following U.S. Patents and others have attempted to overcome some of these problems.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,257,939 entitled “Cultural knowledge board game” that issued to Robinson, et al. includes educational and entertaining table game which has as its theme various educational categories, e.g., the Bible, mythology, folklore, literature, philosophy, religion, the arts, world history, United States history, politics, geography, anthropology, psychology, sociology, business, economics, science, health, technology and ethnic history and culture (e.g., American Indian, Afro-American, etc.).
U.S. Pat. No. 5,377,990, entitled “Board game incorporating native American symbols and knowledge” that issued to Seeney-Sullivan includes a board game in the general form of a circular pattern of native American symbols includes a matrix of like symbols in the center. Players toss a projectile at specific symbols in the board center, attempting to hit those symbols which match those along the periphery of the board which have been assigned to each player. Successful strikes are marked with an appropriate and distinctive marker. A player continues so long as he/she successfully hits the desired symbols, up to a maximum of six. The player is then randomly rewarded with symbol cards equal to the number of successful hits, which cards are turned face up.
Those that match are placed upon the player's peripheral symbols, indicating that those have been acquired by the player and need not be acquired again. Other players may claim the first player's non-matching cards if those cards match their symbols. Other players may also challenge the first player with questions which must be answered successfully before the first player can win the game.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,454,569, entitled “Afro American educational quiz game” that issued to Donald P. Walker includes an Afro American Educational Quiz Game where players receive points for correctly identifying notable black persons on question and answer cards. The game has a game board divided into multiple subject categories with letters for each category and numbers corresponding to letters and numbers on the question and answer cards and token chips, which are kept in a card box, having separate compartments for each subject matter and a chip box with separate compartments for each category. A person chosen as monitor places the numbered and lettered chips on the correspondingly matched numbered and lettered sections of the game board. A player then chooses a category. The monitor then selects a chip from the category chosen by the player, and the monitor picks the question and answer card corresponding to the number and letter on the selected chip. The question and answer card has a mini biography of a notable black person on one side and a photograph of the notable black person on the other side. The player who correctly identifies the notable black person accumulates points until all the cards are retired.
However, these inventions still do not solve all of the problems associated with providing board games related to African American culture.
It is desirable to provide board games related to African American culture, including, but not limited to, history, language including slang, music, movies, sitcoms, sports.